


The Blue in the Shadows

by puff22_2001



Series: The Shadow Soldiers [3]
Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Eye Trauma, Fanart, Female Friendship, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Healing, Injury Recovery, Inspired By Tumblr, Inspired by Fanart, Major Character Injury, Post-Battle, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sleepovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24639046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/puff22_2001/pseuds/puff22_2001
Summary: They survived, but at a cost. In the night Ami and Minako must forgive each other--and themselves.
Relationships: Aino Minako & Mizuno Ami
Series: The Shadow Soldiers [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1784056
Kudos: 9





	The Blue in the Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfiction is inspired and requested by [Fooze](https://sirazaroff.tumblr.com/) over on tumblr. She gave me permission to post the motivating fanart, which you can see below. Please, please check out Fooze's tumblr, as well as her [art blog](https://azaroff.tumblr.com/) and her [etsy](https://www.etsy.com/shop/sirazaroff).

Years of video games--of battle--have Minako simultaneously on autopilot and on high alert. Her hands don’t still as she senses the other person’s timid step, though her ear does twitch--a remnant from Venus, a vestigial memory of millennia ago.

Ami doesn’t just look small in the doorway; she’s tiny. Never more than now, after--after everything. Diminished, in a way that has Minako wanting to reach out and lend her inner light, another gift (curse) from her previous life.

But Ami hasn’t said probably more than five words since they won. After Usagi is secured, after they’ve all come back. Ami, already so quiet, is practically mute. Her eyes are silent, as well. Cold, not with apathy, but with pain. Drawing into herself, Ami looks like she’s freezing.

Minako feels cold, too. Though they’ve won, there’s a chill between them all. Even Rei is dimmed, though she flares as best as she can for them. She’s wrapped around Usagi now, clinging so tightly that Usagi will have bruises in the morning. Bruises that are born of love, and not hate this time. Not this time.

Mako encircles them both in the giant nest of blankets and pillows, ever the group’s protecting wall. Mako hurts, just as much as any of them, but Mako has a--resiliency that the others lack. She’ll always bear the scars (branching tissue from Beryl, all the way to the minute, fine-pointed marks left by her own friends’ weapons and magic) but she’ll heal. Mako heals herself, and then heals them.

But Ami can’t help Mako right now. Their medic is down, wounded, shot through with magical and mental shrapnel. Ami isn’t Rei, with her fire. She doesn’t have Mako’s strength, or Usagi’s hope. And she doesn’t have Minako’s nihilism.

So Ami’s hurt. Because she hurt Minako. If Ami weren’t so low, Minako might joke about training paying off, or one joke too many finally snapping her petite friend, or--or anything, really.

Anything to get Ami to stop hiding in shadows, answering every question with red eyes and as few words as decorum and duty will allow, She hurt Minako when she was possessed--did she have to hurt Minako with her guilt, too?

They stand in silence for a minute (for a millenia, always millenia with them). Minako keeps playing, her one good eye trained on the task at hand and both ears on her friend. Ami looks so small in her blue flocked sleep pants and oversized, orange sweatshirt. It was Minako’s once.

“Can I sit with you?” Ami’s voice is raspy with disuse and injury (Rei had strangled her, during--during). Minako doesn’t betray her surprise. If ever there was a time to compare Ami to a skittish foal, now was it.

“Sure.” Minako keeps playing, the little chimes comforting as they always have been. Her phone has a dozen secret apps that Ami created to monitor their health, their location, everything. Minako’s playing a game that Ami designed.

“Have you beaten the newest difficulty yet?” Ami says quietly, so quietly that Minako can barely hear her, even with her senshi hearing. She hasn’t yet moved from the doorway to Mako’s little bedroom. Mamoru is in the living room with the Lunar cats, snoring softly on the couch. His hands clench with tension even in his fitful sleep--Minako knows that he aches to be with his girlfriend. But this is their time. Usagi needs them now, after everything.

And Ami needs Minako, but for once she’s at a loss. A joke, a laugh, a smile. Anything. Minako can’t sleep--how often can she, really, ever since that small white cat found her? Has she ever had a good night’s sleep, even before? Has Venus ever really let her rest?

“No, I keep dying on the level with Mimette. God, I hated her.” Ami laughs weakly and slowly makes her way over.

“She was not our best adversary, clearly.” The little window seat can just fit them both, but Ami stands off to the side. She looks blue in the beautiful (cruel, cold) moonlight. Her skin hasn’t really pinked since the Outers had to bring them back. Since they--

“No, and she was a shit idol, too.” Minako scooches over. Her avatar gives a thumbs up as she restarts the level. “Here, help me. I’m sick of seeing that stupid orange hair.”

Ami sits delicately on the cushion--everything about Ami is fragile right now. About them all. Usagi is a bubble about to burst. Rei is a flame on the verge of burning out. Mako might explode in crackling lightening, and Minako--

Minako endures. She may not bounce back like Mako, but she doesn’t shatter. Her beams cut and vibrate, but they’re light and metal. They endure. She can’t shatter. She can’t. Not ever again.

“You need to ignore her.” Ami says, her voice still soft but stronger now that she has a purpose to fulfil. She points at the screen and Minako sees the cast on her hand. Mako always did have a strong grip, especially when angry. Still, who knew she could shatter bone just by squeezing?

“How can I? She’s right there!” Minako says quietly, ever mindful of her companion’s state.

“Just focus on winning. Remember, she’s just there to distract you.”

Ami moves closer, just a breath away. Minako breathes deep, trying to guide her little Sailor Venus to perform just the right moves to win the dance competition. Even with Mimette on the giant screen behind her, she needs to win.

She beat the original level weeks ago, before everything went to shit. She’s beaten the game a couple of times all told, but Ami keeps adding content. Every time they come back and they have a new battle to add. New stories and new wounds.

Minako knows that this last battle won’t make it into the game.

“See? You just needed to focus.” Ami says when Sailor Venus does a pirouette and grins, holding up a V symbol. She’s beaten it, for the first time in weeks. Minako puts her phone down on the side table she pulled near when she first got up from the pile in Mako’s bedroom.

It was so important that she beat the damn thing. For some reason.

“I needed the help.”

“I didn’t help.” Ami has never sounded so bitter. So brittle, like the ice that she wields. “You won on your own.”

“I’ve been playing for an hour. You helped me win in five minutes.”

“I didn’t, I didn’t really.” Ami begins to cry, the tears tinged blue in the wan moonlight. Blue can be such a warm color in the sky, on a cozy sweatshirt, in Ami’s eyes.

It’s not a warm color right now.

“Hey, hey, hey.” Minako says and reaches for Ami, finally giving in to the urge that’s haunted her since they won. Since Ami’s been hiding in her books and her shadows.

“No, I might hurt you!” Minako keeps reaching, slowly, like you might try to pet a feral cat. Ami cringes back and buries her face in her hands. Minako finally breaches the divide and envelopes Ami, mindful of the burn on her neck, unhidden by the sweatshirt. Minako’s own whip. It can burn almost as badly as Rei’s fire. Ami doesn’t hug her back, but she stops trying to compact into herself and disappear. Her hands are dripping with tears.

“Ami.” Minako murmurs her name over and over, a tuneless lament, and an awakening.

“Your eye.” Ami whimpers, her voice melting. Finally, finally melting.

“I’ve had worse.”

“I did that. We all did, to each other. How can we go on? Knowing what we did?” Ami looks up from her hands, her face so close to Minako’s, full of despair and fear. Minako’s tries in vain to open her ruined eye, to show Ami that’s she's fine. It doesn’t move a centimeter.

“All of my notes, all of my research! Nothing stopped it!”

“And neither did Rei’s readings, or my planning, or anything.” Minako says softly and begins to stroke Ami’s blue, blue hair. “We still won. Well, technically the Outers and Usagi won, but you get my point.”

“But your poor eye.” Ami fixates, she always does. She’ll ignore her own injuries for hours to tend to theirs. She’ll nearly starve when she’s researching an enemy. She’ll run herself ragged if that’s what she thinks will help. In her own way, Ami endures too.

“And look what I did to your neck. What Mako and Rei did to each other. What Usagi had to do to me and Mako to keep us from killing her.” Minako keeps patting Ami’s hair. “This was not your fault, Ami.”

“But,”

“This was not your fault.” Minako says again, just as gentle, just as firm. “This was nobody’s fault except the enemy’s. And they’re dead and we’re not.”

“We hurt each other.”

“We did. And the enemy used our own emotions and resentments to get to us.” Minako remembers, God, does she. The feelings, twisting and becoming cruel and dark.

“But how do we?”

“We forgive. We move on. This was not your fault.”

Ami’s still crying, tears tracking down her cheeks. Minako closes her good eye and leans in. Their foreheads sit together, and Minako pushes as much of her warmth into her friend as she can spare. Ami is so cold.

Not as cold as she had been.

“This was not your fault. Or mine. Or anyone’s. And the things we did? That the damn shadow used against us? We forgive and we move on.”

“I don’t know if I can.” Ami whispers brokenly.

“I’ll help you. And if you can’t ever get over this,” Minako opens her working eye and looks straight into Ami’s own, “Then we’ll adjust. You can work behind the scenes. You can be at headquarters full time.”

Minako is still holding Ami, and she stops stroking the blue hair to more fully complete her protection again. “Because I forgive you. We need you, and I forgive you.”

“Mina,”

“I forgive you.” Minako says and there’s a hitch in her voice, finally. “Do you forgive me?”

“Oh, Mina. I never blamed you!” Ami says with force. Luna snuffles in her sleep on the couch from the noise, and Ami turns towards the sound in guilt.

Minako smiles. Ami is so smart, but so dense sometimes. “I've never, ever blamed you.”

“I’m still so sorry.” Ami turns back and finally puts her arms around Minako, gripping the ratty, bootleg Sailor V tee in her small, fragile hands. Minako can feel them trembling on her back.

“I know. I am too. We all are. But we forgive and we move on.”

“I love you, Mina. I love you.” Ami says and continues to cry. Her hug turns desperate. “I love you and everyone and I’m sorry.”

Ami cries and rambles for what seems a millennia (for once, a healing millennia) until she slows and coughs.

“Better?” Minako asks as she loosens her grip slightly, if only to rearrange her friend in her arms. Soon they’re laying out on the seat, Ami’s head on Minako’s chest. Mako’s hand-stitched cushions are almost a bed, and Minako’s finally, finally growing drowsy.

“A little.” Ami snuggles down into Minako’s shirt, her arms slacking as she begins to drift off. “I really wish we could get therapy.”

“Someday, when we don’t have to be a secret.”

“I’m so glad for you, Mina.” Ami says as she falls asleep. Minako soon follows, thankful at least that being blind in one eye now makes the effort even slightly easier.

She’s never had a good night’s rest. Not really. Ami’s still so cold.

They beat the game. The night is retreating, the blue moonlight giving way to golden dawn.

Together, they’re almost warm.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this fanfiction for Fooze over on tumblr as a continuation of her Shadow Soldiers concept using her descriptions and details. Although this story does feature her ideas heavily, I think that friendship and healing are universal enough to not explicitly require a full backstory. However, you should still totally go ask Fooze about her ideas and check out her amazing art!


End file.
